It appears my old alma mater, Hoover High School, is about to see its first astronaut alum. Barbara Morgan -- she was Barbara Radding when we were classmates way back when -- is scheduled to go into space aboard the shuttle Endeavor sometime after June 28.
Barbara, many will recall, trained as the backup for Christa McAuliffe, the nation's first "teacher in space," who tragically lost her life, along with six fellow astronauts, when the Challenger shuttle exploded shortly after launch in 1986.
The upcoming Endeavor mission will visit the international space station to do some assembly work.
Barb told the Los Angeles Times' John Johnson Jr. that she's excited, despite the obvious risks. So is her family, apparently. She said her husband and their two children are "behind me all the way. They would like to bump me off and go in my place."
Barb went back to teaching elementary school in Idaho after the Challenger disaster, but resumed astronaut training when NASA resurrected the "educator astronauts" program in 1998. She graduated from Stanford after leaving Hoover, and she still has a legion of old friends and admirers around town who will be wishing her well.
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